Pages

Sunday, 28 August 2011

That's Not What a Las Vegas Audience Looks Like

I had this post all worked out ahead of time. I was sitting in the Theatre for Performing Arts at Planet Hollywood this evening, waiting for a private concert by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill to start, and I was sketching this entry out in my mind. The thought was to write about Las Vegas audiences, and how musicians must hate coming to play here. I've been to plenty of shows here in Las Vegas by now, and I can't count the number of times I left a show feeling sorry for the performer. When a performer plays at a casino, the casino gives away a lot of tickets to its best players, and when you give people something for free, they usually take it, whether or not they really have any use for it. The performers give it their all, but when your audience is composed of people who are hearing your music for the first time, it's almost impossible to get people up on their feet and dancing. Actually in some cases, it really is impossible. Casino patrons tend to skew towards the older demographic. So tonight the plan was to write about how frustrating that must be for an artist.

Maybe another night.

Tonight was a night for us old folks to get up and dance. Especially the ladies. I don't know what it is about Tim McGraw, but he has some kind of hold over his female fans. It's almost as if handsome, funny, and physically fit are back in again. Who knew? Apparently it was no secret to the ladies at the show tonight, as they chased Tim back and forth across the theatre every time he was brave enough to come into the audience. When Tim wisely retreated to the safety of the stage, the front of the theatre packed up with people standing, dancing, and having a fantastic time. It was very un-casino-y.

Give the credit to Tim though, as he kept imploring the audience to get into the show. He started the show off playing with his band, and played hit after hit until everybody had to have heard at least one of their favorite songs. He made serious efforts to connect with the audience, joking that "I know you're all just waiting for the pretty blonde girl to come out" and when it looked like people might be sitting back, Tim went into the audience himself, causing an almost stampede from nearly every woman in the room.

Then, the pretty blonde girl did come out. Faith joined Tim for a couple of duets, then took center stage herself for a few songs while Tim took a break. Faith hasn't been doing a whole lot of shows lately, and it was a real treat to see her back on the stage. She still sounds great, looks good, and has all the same charisma that her husband does. When the two of them are on the stage together, it's readily apparent that they are still deeply in love. Or maybe it was apparent because Lori kept tapping my arm and saying "Look how in love they are" every 5 minutes or so.

Tim came back to play some more, since he still had more hits that hadn't been jammed into the show yet. I love those concerts where you knew every song, and can sing along to everything that gets played. Of course the people sitting around me probably wish I didn't know every song, or at least that I could sing better, but at least I knew the words (It's "Live Like You've Been Frying" right?)

The show was a private concert for members of the Total Rewards program, which means that Lori and I were probably some of the younger people invited. Everybody got a free room for the weekend and two free tickets to the concert. This is not an ideal way to fill a 7,000 seat theatre with diehard fans, but the group that came out tonight was one of the better audiences that I've seen at a Las Vegas concert. It'll take more than one good crowd to make me change my thinking about Las Vegas audiences (I'm keeping my original ideas on file) but tonight was a treat to have such a lively group. Congratulations to Tim and Faith for a fantastic concert and I hope they enjoyed their "night away from the kids".

6 comments:

Thanks for checking the review out! Let's see...Tim sang 6 or 7 songs, then Faith came out and joined him for 2. She then sang 3 on her own then left while Tim played the rest. The did 2 songs for the encore together. So I guess the correct answer is 3 of her own songs, and 4 with Tim.New material...probably not to real fans. I hadn't heard "Better than I used to be" before, but other people seemed to know it. I'd post the video from it, but mine sucks as the lady in front of me was really in to the show and kept bopping in front of my camera. Other than that, it was pretty much a greatest hits evening.